Life insurance is commonly purchased by people to insure themselves or others in the event of a persons' death. Other types of insurance provide protection in accordance with their respective policies, which may include property, such as a person's house or car, for example. To obtain an insurance policy, a customer typically submits information to the insurer, who in turn decides whether to insure the customer, and if so, determines an appropriate premium for the issued insurance policy. The decision of whether to issue an insurance policy, as well as the premiums associated with an insurance policy, is generally based upon several risk factors determined from the submitted information. In the case of property insurance policies, these risk factors may be generally determined from the location of the insured property, people who will be operating the insured property, etc. In the case of life insurance policies, the risk factors may be typically determined from the customer's lifestyle choices (e.g., tobacco and/or alcohol consumption) the customer's age, present health conditions, family health history, occupation and/or recreational habits, driving history, credit history, and/or other suitable factors for determining a customer's potential risk of death upon issuance of the life insurance policy.
Traditionally, a customer seeking to purchase a life insurance policy visits a local agent's office. A customer may then furnish relevant information to the agent, and the agent may collect the customer's information. In some cases, an insurance provider may require a medical appointment and laboratory testing. Once all information is received, an insurance provider may utilize this information in conjunction with the originally collected customer information to further adjust the life insurance premiums (or decide to deny coverage).
Since visiting an agent's office may be time consuming and inconvenient, some insurers allow a customer to start an insurance application process using one or more alternate channels, such as through a telephone call center or a web-based online application process. But allowing customers to apply for insurance via these alternate channels has several drawbacks. First, although a customer may submit his information via any of these channels, a customer may need to wait for the results of the medical underwriting before being covered by the policy. In other words, a customer may need to remain uncovered, or unbound, by the contractual obligations of the insurance policy until the results of the medical underwriting process are finished.
Second, because of the complications surrounding the life insurance application process, many customers may not understand the questions presented and/or the overall application process unless explained by an insurance agent. Because visiting an agent's office may be inconvenient, this may act as a disincentive for customers to purchase life insurance policies.
Third, and further due to the complicated nature of the life insurance application process, insurers typically only offer a subset of their life insurance policy suites available for purchase through an online application process. For example, many insurers only allow a customer to purchase term life insurance policies, policies directed only to children, and/or provide benefit ceilings less than $100,000. The present embodiments may overcome these deficiencies and/or other challenges.